The awesome doctrine of predestination was a distinguishing feature of Calvinism. Calvinists were a peculiar lot, partly because no believers could be completely sure that they were of the "elect."

The Puritans of Old England, even before 1620, were unhappy over the snail-like progress of the Protestant Reformation.

The Puritan Reformers fell into two general groups:

Non Conformists - sought to change the Church of England by boring from within. Though were devoted and sincere, they constituted a difficult and militant minority.

Separatists - They wished to separate entirely from the Church of England and its "Romish" practices, in order that they might worship God and combat the Devil in their own way.

King James I, a shred Scotsman, was head of both the state and the church in England. He saw his subjects could defy him as their spiritual leader. He therefore threatened to harass the more bothersome Separatists out of the land.

Playa América

Engraving of colonial governor Sir Edmund Andros.

"Andros a Prisoner in Boston" illustrated by F.O.C...

The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth

A group of separatists in Holland, after negotiating with the Virginia Company, at length secured rights to settle under its jurisdiction. But their crowded Mayflower, sixty-five days at sea, missed its destination and arrived off the rocky coast of New England in 1620, with a total of 102 persons. One had died en route - an unusually short casualty list - and one had been born.

The Pilgrims did not make their initial landing at Plymouth Rock, as commonly supposed, but undertook a number of preliminary surveys. They finally chose for their site the shore of inhospitable Plymouth Bay. They were without legal right to the land and without specific authority to establish a government.

The winter of 1620-1621 was a bone-chilling one, with cold and disease taking a grisly toll. Only 44 of 102 survived.

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